New Delhi: With questions being raised on the alleged illegal "detention" of journalist Iftikhar Gilani following the hanging of Afzal Guru, Congress on Monday put the ball in the Home Ministry's court.

"Let the Home Minister answer...I do not know the circumstances in which the Delhi police did it...I do not why Delhi police detained him. So I cannot comment on it...I do not know why this sort of incident had happened," party spokesperson Sandip Dikshit told reporters at the AICC briefing.

He was responding to queries from agitated journalist as to why Gilani was being harassed "simply because he was related to a separatist leader of Jammu and Kashmir".

Gilani was detained at his father-in-law and hardline Hurriyat leader leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani's house here on Saturday after the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. He was, however, later allowed to go.

The Home Minister said that he had arrived on Monday only from Meghalaya and "I will enquire into it now."

Slamming the police for "detaining" Gilani on Sunday, Press Council Chairman Markanday Katju had asked Union Home Secretary to charge-sheet and suspend the cops if the allegations of "high-handedness" against them were correct.

His response came after Gilani in an email to Katju complained that security agencies had illegally detained him.

The AICC briefing saw journalists slamming the government and the police for "harassment of a senior journalist" who covers both the ruling party as well as the government. The scribes even asked the party spokesperson whether "it was a democratic rule or Nazi rule".